Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?

[Adamsc@io-online.com (Adamsc)]

On Thu, 7 Nov 1996 16:43:23 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>* "Legitimate needs." The whole notion Peter raises of banning cryptography
>is fraught with problems. Are businesses to be told that all communications
>are to be in the clear? Or is Peter's point that some form of GAK will be
>used?

I'd love to see the government try to tell big business that they can't
protect, say, electronic transactions.  That'd get a lot of rented senators
in action...

>(If the latter, then of course we are back to an even better form of
>"stego" than stego itself: superencrypt before using GAK. Unless the
>government samples packets randomly and does what they say they will do to
>open a GAKked packet--e.g., get a court order, go to the escrow key
>holders, etc.--then how will they know if a message is superencrypted? And
>what if a GAKked message contains conventional _codes_? Are shorthand codes
>such as business have long used--"The rain in Rome is warm this month"--to
>be illegal?)

Also:   "Am I being investigated for any crime?"
	"Then how do you know it's been superencrypted - I thought you could only
get access with a 	 	  warrant?"

#  Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com>   | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp
#  <cadams@acucobol.com>		 | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY"
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   --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)